feather_ghyll

A Little Princess: Frances Hodgson Burnett, Puffin 1073 reprint

Rereading February has been happening this year again (although I’m counting it as between 8 February and 8 March). This is the third book I’ve reread as part of that. I’d put it on the reread pile a while ago, although knowing there’s a new adaptation of ‘The Secret Garden’ arriving soon at cinemas made me more eager to reread it. I don’t know when I first read ‘A Little Princess’, possibly not as a child, ( Read more... )

Audrey’s Awakening: E.L. Haverfield Oxford, 1924 reprint.

This is a book with improving quotes at the head of each chapter, and it has much to say to ‘bibliomaniac girls’ who are so involved in their reading that they’re selfishly guarded and reticent with others, but I was quite out of charity with the author on one character. ( Read more... )

Campfire Girls in the Country (or The Secret Aunt Hannah Forgot): Stella M. Francis

( Read more... )

Doctor Noreen: E.E. Ellsworth

( Read more... )

The Mascotte of Sunnydale: E.L. Haverfield

( Read more... )


Of the three, I preferred the latter.

There was another book that I read over my Easter holidays that I want to review, but it deserves a post of its own.

A book-related post!

It’s perhaps unfair to compare these two children’s books about two civil wars, but I read them quite close to each other, so the comparison came readily. Irene Hunt wrote ‘Across Five Aprils’ about the American civil war, as experienced by one Jethro Creighton, while Dorothea Moore (whom I've never posted about here before although I have copies of her books) wrote ‘Perdita, Prisoner of War’ - yes, I admit the title made me grab for it – about Perdita Eynescliffe’s experiences in the English civil war.

I say it’s unfair to compare them chiefly because ( Read more... )

Katya’s World : Jonathan L. Howard, Strange Chemistry, 2012

I bought this without really appreciating that it was going to be YA. Anyway, Katya Kuriakova ( Read more... )

The Castle School: Nancy M Hayes Cassell 1924

One of the most notable things about this book ( Read more... )

There were some mysteries: one featuring bored redheaded twins in Rhodesia in Monica Marsden’s A Matter of Clues. The first Rhodesian-set story I’ve read in a while, it's extremely silly. I then read Out of the Past by Patricia Wentworth, a (late) Miss Silver mystery that features many familiar elements, but there is an attempt to reorder them.

There were two family adventures off the Irish coast, both featuring some extraordinary modes of transportation and Irish clichés, plus the handy deaths of some of those Irishmen who were only mourned for a chapter at best. The Golden Galleon by Eileen Heming ( Read more... )

Then there was Jonquil, Test Pilot by Eileen Marsh, about Jonquil and her brother Jack and sister Belinda, who love flying aeroplanes. ( Read more... ) This book featured a lot of illustrations, most of which I didn’t like at all.

Then finally, unseasonally, there was The Merryfield Mystery by Marjorie Cleves about a group of schoolgirls, two mistresses and staff who stay behind at their school over the Christmas holidays. They’re snowed in and ‘haunted’. I wished that the whole mystery angle, in which everyone was a part-time ghost hunter and sleuth, had been dropped by the author just to tell the story of how this mixed group had got on and entertained themselves.

Oh dear, that’s a grumpy overview, and the truth is, the fact that I managed to nearly burn three toasts this morning has nothing to do with it. I had a relaxing break! (A fuller review of a book that I enjoyed more will be coming next.)

Jessica on Her Own: Mary K. Harris Faber Fanfares 1978

I reread this over the Christmas holidays (and I might as well be honest, I think I'm more likely to write about the Australian Open than I am to post more reviews of anything that I read over Christmas). I picked it up because the book was mixed in a pile of non children's books that I was sorting through as part of the slow process of removing more of my books from my parents'. I must have read it before, although I didn’t remember much about it.

( Read more... )

I've just finished reading this book, so this may not be that considered a review. I began it last night, stopped for a good night' sleep and completed it over breakfast.

Up a Road Slowly: Irene Hunt

I remember that I found out about this Newberry Award winner online, but not precisely where or in what context it was recommended. I'd certainly recommend it, it's a coming of age story, slightly in the vein of L.M. Montgomery, with good writing to savour. ( Read more... )

Just Four Girls: Charles Herbert. The Leisure Library.

I don't think I've ever read a school story like this. ( Read more... )